Ben took a bright fuchsia laminated card with the number 108 written on it and waited for his turn at the Hour Children food pantry in Queensbridge, Queens.  It was his first time getting free groceries.

Last month, Ben, a writing teacher and tutor who calls himself “underemployed,” spent $604 on food for his family of four. “We can’t do that anymore,” he said as he stood in the parking lot entryway to the small pantry.  Still, Ben, who didn’t want to give his last name, said the decision to come to a food pantry was a difficult one. “It’s embarrassing.”

But Ben and his wife, who is also a teacher, have two kids with insatiable appetites — 10-year-old Sarah and three-year old Alex. An empty refrigerator isn’t an option.

“You put your pride away and do what you got to do,” he said.

Over the past year, lines at many of the city’s 1,000 emergency food organizations have gotten longer, and many of the people are younger as the recession’s crippling effects continue.  A new report by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH) found that there has been a 21 percent spike in the number of people who depend on emergency food since the beginning of 2009.

Of the 1.3 million New Yorkers who don’t have consistent access to adequate food 417,000 of them are children, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

“The annual hunger survey showed that of the populations that increased ‘greatly’ at responding agencies over the past year, the fastest growth was seen among families with children,” said Kerry Birnbach, program director of the Interfaith Voices Against Hunger at the NYCCAH.

This means that one of every five children in the city is fed with the assistance of a soup kitchen or food pantry. There are approximately 1.9 million children age 17 and younger living in 976,000 households throughout New York City.

“It’s no longer an underclass problem.  It has spread to the general population,” said Ben.  According to the Food Bank for New York City, an organization that procures and distributes food to pantries, food prices have soared – up 15 percent between 2003 and 2007.

Many of the families new to food pantry lines are working-class who make too much money to be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, but do not earn enough to be self-sufficient. In New York City, a family of three earning $22,900 would not qualify for SNAP, but they would need to earn over $56,000 to be considered self-sufficient.

For Ben, his family’s monthly budget for food has increased $200 over the past couple of years. “I think the solution is food stamps for all Americans, without conditions,” he said. “Food, especially milk, has been subsidized for decades in Europe. Why not here?”

For children, there can be long-term effects to going hungry. City Harvest, an emergency food organization in New York City, reported that chronic hunger and food insecurity could result in delayed growth and development and behavioral problems.

“A child’s nutrition is crucial to their success at school and their behavior so it’s a public health issue we need to address, especially at a time when obesity and diabetes are becoming more and more common,” Birnbach said.

“Kids have to eat 24/7,” said John Clifton, 60.  He doesn’t have any kids of his own but over the past six months, when he started coming to the pantry, he has observed more kids waiting in the longer lines. “I can get through it, but not kids.”

Outside the food pantry in Queensbridge, several other visitors waiting their turn spoke about the difficulties of keeping their pantries full.

Carmen Ronals sat in a plastic white chair waiting for number 85 to be called. A dark green beanie covered her hair and a long black leather jacket that a friend just gave her brushed the pavement. She depends on the food pantry to feed her husband, her adult daughter and her two young granddaughters that live with her. In her food trolley, a plastic bag held two thick wool sweaters she had just bought from a thrift store for two dollars a piece.

Ronals’ husband, who has AIDS, receives SNAP support, but all of that money goes directly into her husband’s account to provide for his strict diet that he has to follow because of his AIDS medications. Taking care of her husband, as well as her son, who also has AIDS, and her sister who has lupus is a full time job. This has left little time and money to get groceries. But the food pantry allows her to feed her family with more ease.  “It helps make ends meet,” she said.

A few feet away, 10-year-old Karen Avila sat on another chair doing her homework with her mother, Marcia. She got to the pantry at 2:30 to get a good number, and waited till Karen joined her after school.

“If you come late, you get less food,” Avila said. The wait can get tedious. Every 30 minutes, a pantry volunteer comes outside and calls numbers in groups of 10. Some visitors said it was a quiet day compared to the past Monday, when some people were turned away.

A petite woman originally from Ecuador, Avila is a hairdresser but is currently out of work.  Beyond what she can get at the pantry three times a month, Avila still spends an additional $50 a week on outside grocery shopping.

“Just the food pantry isn’t enough,” she said.

At school, Karen receives the free lunch provided to the more than 600,000 city school children who fall below the poverty level. Sometimes she gets to school in time for the free breakfast, which ends at 7:50 a.m.

When asked about hunger issues at school, Karen said one girl had to visit the nurse because she was hungry.  “She gave her some crackers to see if she could hold off until lunch,” she said.

Birnbach, from the NYCCAH, forecasts improvements to school nutrition with the recent extension of the federal Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

“It has potential to expand school meals and make them healthier, which would be a big step in helping students concentrate and stay healthy,” she said.

At 5:30, their number, 28, is called and Karen and mother, along with two friends, go into the pantry. They hand Christy Robb, who runs the pantry, a blue punch card and start their way down the pantry’s two aisles. Unlike many other pantries where you receive a prepackaged box of food, this one is “client choice.”

The pantry has a familial feeling. Robb deftly manages the line, saying hello to the returning customers and welcoming the newcomers. But she also keeps a keen eye on the food, making sure people take only what is allotted to them. People can choose one to two items per food group and normally leave with about ten items. “We’re struggling to keep food in here,” she said to one passing visitor.

Walking down the aisles, Avila looks carefully at all the food but she has to be quick.  They have to keep the line going.

“Milk or juice, you can only pick one,” said Karim Dewidar, who occasionally volunteers at the pantry, to Avila.

Avila fills up two yellow plastic bags set inside a food trolley. She takes two packs of single servings of applesauce, two bags of rice, a box of breakfast cookies, rice cereal, two onions, one yam, a potato, a can of beef ravioli, four boxes of sardines and a can of tuna.

“That’s it ma’am,” said another pantry volunteer as Avila reached the end of the second aisle. She glanced down at her trolley, and said, “Can I change the tuna for beans?”

Bishop Orlando Findlayter sees his Brooklyn church as more than a place of worship. In 2001, he launched a coalition of Caribbean clergy to advocate for congregants that had been affected in the September 11, 2001 attacks, successfully establishing a scholarship for boys who had lost their fathers in the towers’ wreckage.

This summer, at the urging of US Rep. Yvette Clarke, Findlayter turned Clergy United to Save and Heal’s Focus towards immigration reform, an issue that he said resonated with many of his foreign-born congregants. Within months the organization had tripled in size, and in late October 120 leaders traveled to Washington, DC to meet with various Washington power players.

“We believe that trip was very successful,” Findlayter said. “You don’t usually see a hundred people dressed as ministers walking through Congress.”

Findlayter’s work underscores a larger trend: as Congress lurches towards another attempt at immigration reform, religious leaders have emerged as some of the loudest voices calling for change.

In New York’s heavily immigrant communities, churches are often a focal point of community life. The Interfaith Center of New York, founded in 1997, has leveraged this and built a coalition of over 1,000 grassroots and immigrant leaders who represent more than 15 different faiths.
“For a lot of immigrant communities the faith leader is the go-to person for everything from social work concerns to immigration status to counseling, so they’re really the point person for a lot of these communities that are finding their way,” said Reverend Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center.

Advocates say that this time around, the faith-based push for reform has a broader base of support than in 2007, when attempts to overhaul the immigration system failed. The Latino community has traditionally been at the forefront of immigrant rights advocacy in New York, and Findlayter said recognizing this spurred him to try and recruit more African-American and Caribbean clergy.

“As religious leaders we feel we have a mandate to get involved,” he said. “In the past, it seemed that only the Latino community was fighting.”

The wide array of faith traditions the Interfaith Center represents reflects a similar diversity in New York City’s immigration population, according to Sarah Sayeed, a program associate with the organization.

“It’s not just impacting Latinos, it’s impacting Asians, and beyond this traditional South Asian or Arab category – it’s East Asian, too,” she said. “As more people are kind of swept up or swept off, it’s critical for voices beyond the Latino community to get involved.”

Findlayter said that much of the work he does centers around educating congregants about the privileges and pitfalls of life as an undocumented immigrant. This includes advice about ensuring that people obtain tax identification numbers, or cautioning them against seeking legal advice from unscrupulous attorneys. Findlayter said as he became more heavily involved, he was surprised at how many members were undocumented.

“That’s problematic because they don’t have access to healthcare, they are unemployed or underemployed,” he said.

The education cuts both ways. Last week, the Interfaith Center brought seven different faith leaders to tour a facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey where asylum seekers await the outcome of their attempts to win refugee status.

“It was a very somber occasion,” Sayeed said. “I think that Elizabeth as a facility is better kept and maintained than a lot of other facilities, but it was quite clear that it’s a space where you were being warehoused essentially, where you were being held.”

Education aside, the Clergy United to Save and Heal march on Washington offers an example of the expanding influence faith leaders may exert in the immigration debate. Findlayter noted that, “elected officials understand that one person may represent 100 or 500 people.”

At a recent town hall meeting sponsored by the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) demonstrated that he grasped this calculus. He repeatedly urged religious leaders to galvanize their flocks.

“The first thing I want to point out is that there is a law above city and state and federal law and that is the law of God,” Rangel said at the meeting. “Throughout history, if someone was hunted down unfairly there was one place you can go for safe passage.”

An augmented clergy presence in the immigration debate comes as advocates are focusing their attention on policies that can tear families apart. As the law currently stands, judges have no discretion to consider whether someone facing deportation for a criminal offense has U.S. citizen children.

For clergy that develop close relationships with the families that attend their churches, mosques and synagogues, the issue of family unity has provided a powerful impetus get involved. Frances Liu, a field coordinator for the New York Immigrant Coalition, said that clergy have the ability to distil the legal intricacies of immigration law into a simple, moral statement.

“There’s a recognition that the debate got really toxic the last time around, so we’ve seen many faith leaders answering the call to bring the moral center back to the debate,” she said.

Daniel Conkle, a professor of religious studies at Indiana University, drew a parallel between the flurry of faith-based immigration activity and church leadership during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Both sought to restore the same fundamental rights to all members of society, regardless of ethnicity or background.

“The beliefs of common religions in the United States – that is to say Christianity, Judaism and Islam – have significant political and moral implications,” Conkle said. “The basic premises of the faith have implications as to how one ought to treat people, so religion is inherently concerned about community.”

A rally last week in front of the immigrant detention center on the corner of Varick Street and Houston Street featured representatives from African, Latino and Asian immigrant advocacy organizations, all of whom decried immigration policies that they said were fracturing their communities. Under the glare of a bright December sun, protestors waved banners and shouted slogans such as “immigrant rights are human rights.” Behind them, six uniformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers looked on.

Reverend Robert Coleman of Riverside Church began the protest, which was organized by the New York Immigration Coalition, began with a prayer. The detention center looming to Coleman’s right has drawn media attention after a 2008 petition, composed by detainees who had not been charged with criminal offenses, described abuses including a lack of medical attention.

“Oh God, we find part of your face is incomplete, because part of your face is in this building,” Coleman said. “Part of your face is hidden and detained and transferred from place to place.”

“Strengthen our hearts and steady our minds that we may stand in the path of injustice and say ‘no more’”.

Beekeeping has been illegal in New York City since 1999 yet, according to the New York Beekeepers Association (NYCBA), hundreds of enthusiasts keep beehives in the city.

Under the New York City health code, it is illegal to harbor or possess “wild animals.” Bees are listed, together with hornets and wasps, as venomous insects. The NYCBA, started in 2008, has campaigned for beekeeping to be legalized in the city.

Since December 2008, the NYCBA, working  with Just Food, a non-profit organization that connects local farms to New York City neighborhoods and communities, petitioned City Council for an amendment of the law to exempt bees. So far 3,358 people signed the petition. Brooklyn City councilman David Yassky introduced a bill in January of this year, which the council has not acted on. Yassky’s term ends at the end of the year. It is unknown what will happen to the bill.

Deborah Romano, 62, of Park Slope, Brooklyn, started keeping bees in the spring of 2009. One of her neighbors – she still does not know who – reported her to the city health department, triggering an inspection by a health code inspector. Fines for illegal beekeeping ranges from $200 to $2,000. Romano was fined $200. She dismantled her hive and donated her bees to the Glen Oaks farm, the only working farm in the city.  Unlike the law banning individual beekeepers, institutions like the farm are exempt.

Romano appears to be the first beekeeper to be fined. But her treatment by city officials suggests there are many who have connections to the tradition of beekeeping and sympathize with those who want to do so in the city. The Department of Health inspector told Romano his family in Afghanistan kept bees when he was young. The judge who fined Romano said his family in Trinidad has a beekeeping business; his father wanted him to return home to manage the family business.

According to a US Department of Agriculture report, in 2006 adult honeybees died or flew away leaving behind immature bees. 30 to 90 percent losses were reported by beekeepers in the winter of 2006. The phenomenon is called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). “Because honey bees are critical for agricultural pollination – adding more than $15 billion in value to about 130 crops,” the report said, “the unexplained disappearance of so many managed colonies was not a matter to take lightly.”

The incidence of CCD invigorated beekeepers in New York to fight for a change in the law.

Jon Feldman, 30, and two friends started keeping bees on a friend’s Williamsburg rooftop in April 2009. They keep bees because they say it is interesting. Feldman expressed concern over the disappearing pollinators in the past few years; he said their project draws attention to the growing problem. “I think that the ban on beekeeping in New York City is slightly ridiculous,” Feldman said. “As people learn more about bees, more people are finding out that they are not an aggressive species. They are often classed with hornets and wasps, they should not be.”

Faced with fines, beekeepers in New York City are reluctant to talk about their illegal activity. “There is virtually no activity with the hives right now,” said BJ Fredericks in an e-mail, but declined to be interviewed further.

The onset of cold weather, ending the beekeeping season,  means a temporary end to lobbying by the beekeepers’ association and Just Food. When the bees awake from hibernation in the spring, so will the campaign.

9/11 families protest attorney general’s decision from Marlow Stern on Vimeo.

By Amy Brittain

A steady, frigid rain smeared the ink on signs held high in Lower Manhattan’s Foley Square on Saturday afternoon, Dec. 4.

Some ditched their creative efforts in puddles of water, instead shouting to carry their messages: “Unbelievable!” “What a joke!” “Not in our house!” “Hell no!”

They were among several hundred people who gathered nearby the federal courthouse to protest a planned trial for five alleged Sept. 11 attacks co-conspirators, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, who announced on Nov. 13 his plans for a civilian trial, faced the brunt of the criticism from speakers and protestors.

Many waved soaked American flags. Some held a yellow flag with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” below a coiled, hissing rattlesnake. Known as the Gadsden flag, it’s a common symbol of government protest.

They gathered with the hope that passionate dissent, in the form of wet shoes, shivering hands and loud voices, could sway Obama and Holder to choose a military tribunal instead of a civilian trial. Holder’s decision sparked controversy because of the potential security risks for Lower Manhattan, the notion of giving U.S. rights to alleged terrorists and the emotional effects the trials could have on the victims’ families.

Paula Cohen, a Brooklyn resident in her 50s, wondered if the protest could make an impact.

“Not unless a lot more people come out in the rain,” she said, bundled in a thick jacket and scarf.

“The thought that these guys are going to be here, exposing the people of New York to another atrocity just by their presence and the frenzy they’re going to stir up, just seems egregiously stupid. And I think the administration ought to reconsider.”

The 9/11 Never Forget Commission, a Sept. 11 victims’ advocacy group, organized Saturday’s event and set the agenda. More than a dozen speakers delivered rallying cries on a covered stage that provided protection from the elements.

“In the midst of war, the Obama administration wants to put on a show trial,” said Debra Burlingame, a board member of the National September 11 Memorial Foundation. Burlingame is the sister of Charles F. “Chic” Burlingame III, who piloted the American Airlines flight that hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

“A show trial,” she repeated for emphasis, drawing boos aimed at the government. “On the site of Al Qaeda’s bloodiest battle against this country.”

The crowd noticeably thinned as the speeches continued for more than an hour. The rain, which turned into the city’s first snowfall later in the afternoon, didn’t let up.

Peter Incledon, 69, retired in 1997 from the Fire Department of New York City after 35 years of service. He wore his chief’s uniform, complete with hat and gloves, to the protest.

“My very first reaction was shock,” he said. “Why bring it to New York? To open up old wounds and to give a platform to terrorism, to create a target for the terrorists?

“Terrible decision. It should be reversed. I hope that they reconsider.”

Incledon was part of a strong firefighter contingent in the crowd, many of whom wore jackets branded with their engine numbers.

John Breen, 42, answered the call on Sept. 11, 2001, as an FDNY first responder with Engine 74, located in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He reported to the Marriott World Trade Center Hotel, which was located between the Twin Towers.

“I’m very fortunate to be here,” he said. “There were a lot of my brothers who were killed behind me.

“Why are you putting all of these families through this torture? Didn’t they go through enough eight years ago? It’s dragging all of the bad memories up. It’s putting our city in jeopardy.”

Burlingame cautioned the audience that it could take three years for the alleged co-conspirators to face justice. She then challenged the crowd to write U.S. senators and representatives and tell them to speak out against the civilian trial.

“If you take one thing away today folks, take this message,” she said. “Don’t get mad, get busy.”

A group of Iranian students at Columbia and New York universities protested yesterday, along with their fellow students in Iran, in celebration of its National Student Day, also known as 16 Azar in the Persian calendar. It was a day of remembrance of three students who were killed during a demonstration against the anticipated visit of Vice President Richard Nixon in 1953 at Teheran University.

 At noon, 15 Iranian students gathered in front of Columbia’s Butler Library holding posters, wearing green wrist-bands and pins on their clothes to represent the official color of the Iranian democratic movement.

 For about an hour, the undergrads endured the cold in solidarity with the Iranian students who held demonstrations inside Teheran’s universities throughout the day.

 “The young people are the future of my country,” said Sam Nourian, a 24-year-old Iranian who came to America four years ago to study media at La Guardia Community College

 The events organized in the city reveal a new generation of politically active Iranian young people who are willing to express their ideas and demands not only in Iran, but abroad too.

 Nourian, a supporter of Iran’s pro-democracy Green Revolution, started organizing protests in New York City six months ago, as a result of the disputed June presidential elections in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reelected.

 “Iran will not die,” Nourian said. “We will fight for freedom and prosperity in Iran and peace in the world.”

 Later in the evening, at NYU’s Theatre for the Performing Arts, Where is my Vote ,  a grassroots organization promoting  human rights, organized a panel discussion between former Iranian student activist Ahmed Batebi, American student activist Elizabeth Joynes, and Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian Studies and comparative literature at Columbia.

 With an attendance of about 60 people, most of them young Iranians wearing green clothes in accordance with the official color of the movement, the conversation focused on Batebi’s experiences as a political prisoner for nine years. A youth leader in Iran, he fled his country a year ago and now lives in New York as a refugee. 

 Batebi became a symbol of the student revolution and a celebrity due to the photograph published on the cover of The Economist magazine in 1999, where he held up a bloody shirt in the middle of a mass student protest against the Ayatollah Khamenei.

 Protestors also seized the occasion to discuss whether economic sanctions on Iran would suffocate the current regimes’ primary economic resources, or would if it be counterproductive to its national security.

 “That is the most important issue right now, to come up with intelligent, definable sanctions, either political or economic,” said Batebi.

 Young Iranians have rallied, marched and protested against what they consider “Ahmadinejad’s dictatorial and illegitimate regime” both in Iran and abroad, asking for the president’s resignation and a definite end to human rights abuses.

 “I am here to help bring the inhumane Islamic regime to an end and to support the student’s aspirations for a secular democracy,” said Raza Jorjani, a Ph.D. student at Stony Brook University and founder of the activist network Iranians Against Islamic Government.

 Iranian student supporters of the pro-reform movement and its defeated candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, clashed with police around the Tehran University campus where a large demonstration was held Monday, according to Iranian blog posts.

 The arrest of 15 women members of the Committee of Mourning Mothers, who participated in a demonstration in memory of the students killed in 1953 during the riots that erupted over the presidential elections, appeared to be part of the government’s increasing efforts to suppress the larger rally planned for Monday, said The New York Times.

 According to Iranian bloggers, authorities reduced Internet service in the last couple of days to keep pro-democracy protestors from utilizing social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as their key means to mobilize.

 “I have been trying to get a hold of my friends and family to know what is going on but haven’t been able to get through, the government shut everything down,” said Nourian.

 Iranian students and citizens posted videos on the web showing Revolutionary Guard forces and thousands of riot police surrounding Tehran University campus in order to prevent unrest to spill into the streets.

 Thousands of protesters shouting “death to the dictator” outside Tehran University were beaten and fired with tear gas by security forces and Basij militiamen on Monday, according to the London Daily according to the London Daily The Globe and Mail.

 Throughout Tuesday, comments on Facebook and Twitter revealed that the student marches continued for a second -day and arrests of 204 dissidents followed.

 Next Saturday, a new set of protests are being planned around the world six months after Election Day to honor the struggle for human rights in Iran and the students’ noncompliance with the presidential elections outcome.

When Halston set out to create the flowing, vivid red “American Beauty Rose” gown, he didn’t make his assistant do the grunt work. He did it himself.

Halston, who is considered one of the top American designers, started with 16 gigantic silk organza circles. He then layered the silk to make eight circles, pulled them apart at the radii and pieced them together in four quadrants that fall effortlessly around the body. The sweetheart-shaped bust features layers of silk that look like rose petals.

Halston's "American Beauty Rose" gown, which has become the emblem of the current Museum at FIT exhibit. Photo: Amy Brittain

This gown sits on a raised circular platform as the star of “American Beauty: Aesthetics and Innovation in Fashion,” a new exhibit that opened in early November at the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in Chelsea. Although the end product alone would warrant prominent display in an exhibit, curator Patricia Mears chose the dress based on its hands-on, intensive design rather than its style.

“She sort of became our emblem,” Mears said. “It’s the perfect name for a perfect dress. People don’t realize the economy that went into this and the very precise, almost minimal patterns that Halston has used.”

The dress is among 90 that Mears used to illustrate the relationship between hands-on dress craftsmanship and the ideals of beauty in America. Simply put, Mears thinks hardworking, creative craftsmen, such as Halston, designed clothing that had a tremendous impact on the trends that Americans think are beautiful. Mears’ belief is a departure from a common idea that U.S. fashion is simply a collection of borrowed concepts from abroad.

Defending the American fashion industry is nothing new for Mears.

She once offered to introduce a Dutch designer to several New York fashion designers, but he delivered a cold, curt response.

“You don’t have any good designers in America,” he told her.

Mears bit her tongue at the moment but not for the long haul. Instead, she went to work to prove the Dutchman wrong.

Valerie Steele, fashion historian and director of the Museum at FIT, supported her colleague’s educational mission.

“The idea in Europe is very widespread that American fashion is just derivative and it’s just casual,” Steele said. “I think this exhibition definitively disproves that.”

A stroll through the exhibit’s dresses conjures images of red carpets and lavish ballroom dances. But Mears hopes the exhibit also shows that craftsmanship, rather than style, is essential in the history of U.S. dressmaking.  She wants the casual viewer to understand the intensive manpower and countless hours required for handcrafting a beautiful piece. The show puts an emphasis on the technical creation, such as the manipulation of geometric shapes used to create a flowing dress.

“Some of the most famous images of fashion have come out of the United States,” said Mears, referring to old Hollywood glamour, blue jeans and sportswear. “The proliferation of good-quality, ready-to-wear is an American invention. But we have not done a good job of showing the world that we have true designers.”

The exhibit at the Museum at FIT features 90 pieces from America's best hands-on designers. Photo: Amy Brittain

Mears organized the dresses, which date back to the 1930s, by themes in construction and function. There’s a section for little black dresses and classic American sportswear, along with dresses grouped by geometric patterns: including circles, squares, rectangles and parallelograms. Rectangles are by far the most common shape for constructing a piece, given the shape’s ability to flatter and elongate the body’s natural lines. Squares aren’t so flattering, which is why the shape is used sparingly among designers.

Despite American Beauty Rose’s prominence in the exhibit, it is not the most expensive or labor-intensive dress that Mears displayed. That honor goes to Ralph Rucci’s “Suspension” Infanta gown, a black duchesse satin 2006 creation with olive silk embroidery. Mears estimates the dress took several hundred hours to create and would cost more than $100,000 to buy.

Next to Rucci’s dresses are the historical Charles James gowns. Created in the 1950s, his gowns required the most delicate care in preparation for the exhibit, according to senior conservator Ann Coppinger. The dresses can easily stand up by themselves, strengthened by a complex structure of curves, angles and volume that would make it nearly impossible for the wearer to sit down. Steele labeled James’ dresses as her favorites within the exhibit.

Claire McCardell's 1957 romper. Photo: Amy Brittain

On the other end of the price and complexity spectrum, Mears identified a Claire McCardell 1957 romper as the most functional piece in the exhibit. The black and white plaid cotton romper, cinched at the waist with a red elastic belt featuring gold-colored metal hooks, likely cost $5 at the time of its creation.

It’s unclear if the skeptical Dutchman will make a trip to the exhibit, which runs through April 2010.  But even if he doesn’t show his face and view the “American Beauty Rose” dress, Mears and Steele think he has heard the message.

“I hope that with all of our shows that people start thinking more about the subject,” Steele said. “This will get them to question, ‘What’s American about American fashion?’

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s chairman Jay Walder and television health guru Dr. Mehmet Oz flipped the switch on the Grand Central Holiday Laser Light Show, bringing dancing snowflakes, virtual mistletoe and a  dizzying spinning Pegasus to life on the ceiling of the main concourse.

At least 100 people gathered with heads tilted upward to watch the light display. Holiday classics including “Frosty the Snowman,” “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer,” and “Winter Wonderland” accompanied the many holiday icons in bright red, green and blue lights.

“We think of it as a tremendous New York City landmark and as an iconic transportation facility,” said Walder. “But there is no better place to spend the holidays than Grand Central.”

The light shows, first introduced in 1999 according to an MTA spokesman, is part of the annual holiday traditions at Grand Central. The five-minute show replays every 30 minutes between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. daily through Dec. 31.

Talk show host Oz said Grand Central “has carried millions of people not just to and from work, but home for the holidays, too.”

One of those people was Paula Serignese, a Connecticut resident visiting her daughter in New York. With suitcase in hand, she was mesmerized by the holiday lights and sounds.

“It was nice,” she said. She added/said that it helped put her in the mood for the holidays.

But she also wanted to get a peek at Dr. Oz in person. “I used to watch him when he was on Oprah,” she said. “I always liked him.”

Go to www.grandcentralterminal.com for more information.

— Ruth Schneider

Transit officials are not impressed.

It’s not surprising considering the mocking tone of the tweets. A few recent tweets include:

• “Today in Transit History: 1898-Subway adopts F.R. Sneed’s newly patented “hangy-downy” emergency brake. Sneed’s design remains unchanged!”
• “Uptown 3 trains will be delayed approximately three weeks, due to a tear in the time/space continuum.”
• “Transit terms explained: ‘Police investigation’ = keys fell between baggie of Cheerios and Surge sixer.”

The account is the brainchild of Josh Oswald and Reed Jackson, both of whom work in the media.

“It popped into my head as something I would have fun doing,” said Oswald. “I’m not angry at all with the MTA. I think if anything it comes off as everyday frustrations that everybody shares.”

“We are aware of the problem,” said James Anyansi, a spokesman for New York City Transit. “We’re not happy about it.”

A Metropolitan Transit Authority official declined to comment. Both MTA and NYCT mentioned @NYCTsubwayscoop is the official Twitter account of the subway system.

Gene Russianoff, spokesman for NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign, didn’t see the big deal.

“It seems funny,” he said. “I’ve looked at it a few times and the caliber of the writing was very good. It’s not like they’re jumping turnstiles or anything.”

Neither MTA nor NYCT contacted the duo, Oswald said. He doesn’t understand why NYCT would call the account “a problem.”

“It’s not intended to provoke riders. It’s not intended to provide false information. “It’s the most ridiculous parody.”

— Ruth Schneider

Naima Rauam, who presented an exhibition of her work as part of the fourth annual Fulton Fish Market Day last Sunday. Photo: Spencer Bailey

By Spencer Bailey

While an art student in the mid-1960s, Naima Rauam would scour the streets for subjects to paint with pastels and watercolors. One day at a friend’s suggestion, she left her West Village apartment, paid the 15-cent subway fare and rode the downtown train to Fulton Street. Within minutes, she knew she’d found the ideal scene.

“The fish guys were just wall-to-wall action,” said Rauam, now 63. “I fell in love with the place right then and there.”

Since then, Rauam has turned her fascination with the fish market into a lifelong affair. For a while, she lived on Staten Island, commuting daily with her French easel, canvas and supplies, painting the men as they worked in the marketplace. For 14 years after that, she ran a makeshift gallery there – called Art in the Afternoon (Fish in the Morning) – using the space to showcase her work. Then Rauam shared a studio, on Beekman Street, in the Meyer & Thompson Smoked Fish Company’s building.

Rauam still works in the neighborhood today. But the Fulton Fish Market no longer resembles the place, full of fishy fragrances, she found 40-some years ago. In 2005, the market moved to Hunts Point, in the Bronx, after decades of development, mostly facilitated by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s investment in the seaport area. Last Sunday, Rauam presented the fourth annual Fulton Fish Market Day, featuring an exhibit of her sketches, drawings and paintings and a panel of local historians.

The market, which opened in its small Front Street location in 1822, had long been a focal point for the seaport, said Jack Putnam, a former seafarer and smokehouse worker and now the historian at the South Street Seaport Museum. “It was really the mainstay of the neighborhood, because the shipping business had pretty much evaporated by the 1950s,” he said.

During the 1960s and ’70s, the market’s activity continued to bustle. “In the ’60s, the Fulton Fish Market was completely active and reeking up the whole place, just the way we loved,” said Terry Walton, a historian and author of “Harbor Voices.”

Photo: Spencer Bailey

The catalyst for much of the change came in 1983, when the city’s Economic Development Corporation established Pier 17, a retail shopping center in the South Street Seaport. The development introduced new businesses – bars, restaurants and, eventually, clothing retailers – which, for better or for worse, altered the local economy.

“They welcomed this huge influx of young people from Wall Street who would come in droves after 5 p.m.,” said Walton. “Fulton Street would be filled with yuppies, drinking up the bars.”

The area’s rapid development continued on throughout the next two decades. Some buildings were renovated. Derelict buildings and vacant lots were filled in. And, along with much of Manhattan during the late-90s real-estate boom, said Putnam, rents went up.

But the market still thrived. “Anybody coming here in 2003 would have recognized the Fulton Fish Market of 1835,” said Putnam. “Different buildings but in the same location. Same family names in a lot of cases. Same fish. Same two-wheeled dollies to carry them around.”

About 5 percent of U.S. seafood sales in 2005 came through the market alone, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The place continued to do big business up until its final month, in November 2005, when the odiferous market was forced to move.

“The threat of moving to the Bronx was hanging over the heads of vendors for years,” said Walton. “I’m pretty sure that the combination of ‘progress’ on South Street and the reek of the fish – there was a conflict there.”

Today, wholesalers, retailers, supermarkets and restaurateurs instead head to the market’s new $86 million facility in the Bronx to purchase their seafood. At 40,000 square feet, with large, arched ceilings and hulking overhead lamplights, the new market cannot be compared to the old.

Despite the Fulton Fish Market’s move – and now, factory-like setting – said Rauam, she still likes to show her support for the Bronx market.

Photo: Spencer Bailey

“It’s very high-tech, very modern. It sort of looks like Costco, with fish boxes. It’s indoors. There’s none of the glamour of the city streets. There’s no night sky, or moon, or stars. And so, it’s a whole different atmosphere,” she said. “But I still go up out of loyalty.”

Nowadays, retail shops – J.Crew, Abercrombie & Fitch and The Body Shop among them – and chain restaurants, all of which attract tourists, line the seaport’s streets. While some remnants of the old neighborhood remain – Carmine’s, for example, the area’s oldest bar, which opened in 1903, still serves food and drinks – the majority of the seaport’s historical and architectural past is long gone.

Rauam sees her art as more than emblematic of the neighborhood she once knew. It’s her way of keeping alive the spirit of the place – the bustling market, the fish guts, the busy-bodied men.

“For something to be here for 183 years and to form a New York character and to form the waterfront here,” she said, “I think it’s important not to forget it.”

“I am still traumatized by it,” said the Brooklyn Democrat, chair of the Women’s Issues Committee, about her trips across town in the early 1990s.

“You have to think about what women go through everyday. It should be better than 20 years ago,” she told James Hall, the New York Police Department Transit Chief.

She made the comments in a city council hearing held by Women’s Issues, Transportation and Public Safety committees addressing sexual harassment and assault on New York City subways. Members of the three committees grilled Hall and New York City Transit officials for more than two hours Thursday morning, trying to determine the best ways to address to problem.

“It’s the No. 1 quality of life offense on the subway,” said Hall. “The most important way people can fight against these disgusting crimes is to report them.”

Unfortunately, not many people do. Last year, 578 victims reported instances of sexual harassment. But even Hall admits that number is nowhere near the number committed on a subway system that serves 5 million people everyday. The number of reported incidents is up from 2008, when 564 complaints were reported. In addition, Hall said the number of arrests decreased 6 percent. Meanwhile, the number of transit officers has remained nearly constant for the past several years, hovering around 2,600 officers.

“This is not an underreported problems,” said Comptroller-elect John Liu, a Queens Democrat and chair of the Transportation Committee. “This is an unreported problem.”

The interrogation generated new ideas for both NYPD and NYCT to consider.

“I would like to see something along the lines of wall of shame,” said Councilman Peter Valone, a Democrat representing Astoria. “We used to publish names of people patronizing prostitutes, so I don’t see a problem with it. Posting pictures of people convicted, especially with 20 percent recidivism.”

Lois Tendler, Vice President of Government and Community Relations for NYCT, said the department would consider the legal ramifications of the suggestion.

Helen Spears, an outgoing council member from Queens, criticized the public announcement systems that Tendler lauded.

A recent campaign arrived on subways in the form of 11 by 70-inch subway car cards as well as a regular audio message that states: “A crowded train is no excuse for an improper touch. Don’t stand for it, feel ashamed, or be afraid to speak up. Report it to an MTA employee or police officer.”

Sears and fellow council member Larry Seabrook both felt the audio announcements of sexual harassment warnings and information were too infrequent and the audio systems on the cars needed improvement.

But Oraia Reid, co-founder and executive director of RightRides for Women’s Safety, found an additional problem.

“Too much of that particular campaign in on the onus of the victim or the survivors,” she said. “In my own personal experience, I have tried to say ‘a guy just grabbed me. I want to report it.’ And I have been denied it.”

“We have more important things to do, ma’am,” she said she was told.

Several other facts came out of Thursday morning’s session:

• The average perpetrator is a 39-year old male.
• The average victim is a woman older than 17.
• The times sexual harassment and assaults are most common coincides with rush hour — 8 to 10 a.m. in the morning and 4 to 6 p.m. in the evening.
• 74 percent of the reported attacks occur on the train
• Of the 587 incidents reported this year, 374 of them occurred in Manhattan.
• 412 people have been arrested this year in sexual harassment and assault cases. Three percent of those are register sex offenders.

— Ruth Schneider